Sometimes, when
Jon Ballantyne
takes his 5-year-old son for a drive in the country, he points out farmers’ fields.

“I say, this is like Saskatchewan,” says the Canadian pianist. “I miss those open spaces.”

But, “I fell in love with New York City,” says Ballantyne, 50, who has chosen to live and work where the action is since he was 27.

“New York had that draw — to see these artists live, in their prime.”

New York is the flame that draws jazz musicians to fabled clubs like the Blue Note, Birdland and the Village Vanguard. It’s where jazz greats Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins plied their trade.

“This was really the place to be,” says Ballantyne, who was smitten by the club scene in the late ’80s and early ’90s.

The musician, who performs June 24 at the Jazz Bistro, is one of many Canadians returning home from New York for the
Toronto Jazz Festival
, running until June 28.

Ironically, it was a Canada Council for the Arts grant that funded singer
Melissa Stylianou’s
trip to New York after studying at Ryerson University.

A theatre arts graduate, she got “roped in” to sing with a Toronto big band group and slowly edged into the jazz scene with a regular weekly gig at The Rex.

She took vocal coaching from jazz great Carol Wellsman and had a transformative experience at the Banff Centre for the Arts where she learned about every aspect of jazz music. In 2005, she got a grant to study with Theo Bleckmann and Garry Dial in New York and has stayed ever since.

“I moved here very quickly. This is where I needed to be,” says Stylianou, 37, the mother of a 15-month-old child. She is married to fellow Canadian Jamie Reynolds, a pianist who also elected to chase his career in New York.

Stylianou performs at the Home Smith Bar June 28 in an evening titled June Garber & Friends marking Garber’s return to her hometown.

Stylianou, who lives in Brooklyn, has a regular gig at The 55Bar which she calls “my Rex Hotel.”

Her new album,
No Regrets
, with Anzic Records is set to be released in the fall and is planning a new album with a group of women singers titled Duchess that features three-part harmony.

Could Stylianou have had the career she wanted if she’d stayed in Canada? Her answer is a firm no.

“The scene here is larger,” says Stylianou who often performs as a lead singer in someone else’s band. “There is lots of opportunity.”

Two jazz-playing brothers raised in North York represent both sides of the coin — one lit off to New York after graduating from university but the other stayed in Canada.

Mark McLean is a New York-based drummer and composer, and Lester McLean, remain close, playing on each other’s albums and performing with the other’s band during the festival.

Mark, 39, who has a gig at the Jazz Bistro June 19-21, is adamant that he couldn’t have the career he has without going to the bigger city.

His has either worked in the studio or toured with a litany of jazz giants including Wynton Marsalis, Quincy Jones, Gladys Knight and Diana Krall.

“I have contacts here. New York is the hub of everything. It’s the place to be, I believe that’s still the case,” says Mark who arrived in 2000 after graduating from the University of Toronto.

He switched to drums after first playing the piano (one of his biggest influences was John Bonham of Led Zeppelin) and finds drummers are his soulmates.

“Drummers are funny. They have an amazing sense of humour,” says Mark.

Lester, 44, who works in broadcasting as a programmer and plays jazz gigs in his off hours, sings and plays saxophone. His band, The Colour of Soul, will play The Rex on June 25.

“I never left,” says Lester, “I love the city and never wanted to leave.”

However, he believes Mark did the right thing for his career. “I knew at the time it was an extremely tough decision. But New York is only a 90-minute flight away.”

There will also be those at the festival who are firmly settled in Canada, such as legendary pianist Oliver Jones, who lives in Montreal and performs at the Jazz Bistro June 27-28.

The 80-year-old Jones celebrates his 75th anniversary as a performer, joking, “I had a late start.”

For most of 20 years, he lived and toured in the U.S., playing pop tunes. A left turn into jazz prompted his return to Montreal in 1980. He started playing jazz at the festivals springing up all over North America and Europe and travelled for three months of the year in Europe, Australia and Africa.

Everywhere he went, he noticed one or two Canadians in the band. Internationally, Oscar Peterson and Maynard Ferguson were well known.

Jones, who grew up blocks from Peterson and took lessons from Peterson’s sister, Daisy, realized he could go back home to Montreal because he was established.

“I can earn a living in my own hometown and in my own country,” he says, adding he still travels 480,000 kilometres a year.

It’s not necessary to leave Canada in order to have a jazz career, argues singer Kellylee Evans.

The mother of three says jazz singers travel so much, it almost doesn’t matter where your home is these days. Evans went to university in Ottawa and has stayed there ever since.

“I wanted to live in New York, Paris and Toronto,” says Evans. “But every single month somebody invites me to Paris and puts me up in a hotel.

“Why not spend a couple of days in New York? Think about it, I breathe New York and Paris air. I’m kind of living the dream.”

Evans, 39, who performed Thursday at the Jazz Bistro, won a 2011 Juno for best jazz album (Nina), appeared at the 2011 Gemini Awards and is currently on the Canadian jazz festival circuit. On Canada Day, she performs with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa.

As for staying in Canada, she says, “I think I have the best of everything. I see myself as an international musician.”

Correction - July 11, 2014:
This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said Melissa Stylianou's new album has already been released.

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